VN520388 2015-05-15 Behold The Man

There is a verse in the New Testament where Christ says do not think that I have come to do away with the law, but I have come to fulfill the law and the prophets. Like I said at the very beginning of this, Matthew 5:17, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” Now, we are going to go to John 19. This is a famous quote. I’m going to say the very famous part of it in Latin because it’s funny to say. John 19:2-7, but where he says I did not come to destroy the law or the prophets but to fulfill them we talk a lot about Christ fulfilling the law because He was perfect, and He never did anything wrong, and He was the perfect Lamb of God and took away the sins of the world, but notice He differentiated it. He said I came to fulfill the law and He came to fulfill the prophets. There are things that the prophets have said, and this was God’s way of tipping people off so they would know the Messiah when He showed up. He says I came to fulfill the law of Moses, but there is always stuff that the prophets have talked about and those things are going to be fulfilled also.

Now, I want to read something to you, John 19:2-7. “The soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe, and said, hail, King of the Jews! and they smote him with their hands. Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, behold the man! When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, crucify him crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him. The Jews answered him, we have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.”

Now, we have read that for years just as a historical fact, a way of the passion played out right before Christ was crucified and people just read it. They don’t realize, most people do not realize that this is actually a fulfillment of prophecy. Zechariah 6:9-15 Old Testament. I think it is right before Malachi isn’t it? I want to read this, then go through it a piece at a time so we can see how this all plays out and how they should have understood what was going on, and actually some of them did understand what was going on and went on with this anyway.

Zechariah 6:9-15. “And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, take of them of the captivity, even of Heldai, of Tobijah, and of Jedaiah, which are come from Babylon, and come thou the same day, and go into the house of Josiah the son of Zephaniah; then take silver and gold, and make crowns, and set them upon the head of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest; and speak unto him, saying, thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, behold the man whose name is The BRANCH; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD: Even he shall build the temple of the LORD; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both. And the crowns shall be to Helem, and to Tobijah, and to Jedaiah, and to Hen the son of Zephaniah, for a memorial in the temple of the LORD. And they that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the LORD, and ye shall know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto you. And this shall come to pass, if ye will diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God.”

Now, what we read in John about Pilate and him saying here is the man, that is actually the fulfillment of this prophecy. It’s talking about the Messiah and we should understand it in those terms, and it makes sense once we start pulling this out and start putting it together what’s actually going on. So, he says in verse 10 take of the captivity of Heldai, and Tobijah, and Jedaiah. He says take from the captivity even of these people and he says to take from them that are coming out of Babylon and from that day they are to go into the house of Josiah the son of Zephaniah. He is saying okay, there are these people coming back from captivity in Babylon and when they get there take from these people, and then I don’t know how else to do this but to explain to you these names all have certain meaning.

When this was originally done the Jewish rabbis and the early Christians actually didn’t translate all these as names. They just put in there what it said. Whenever the guy whose name is Jerome, Jerome is a good guy don’t get me wrong, he was trying to make a translation which became the Latin Vulgate if I’ve got it right in my little head, he went to Israel, he lived over there, he talked to the rabbinical people, and he translated them and put them as names because people said we really don’t know. Some of them aren’t names. This one happens to be and that one happens to be, but some of them really don’t work too good as names and we don’t know who they are so we’re going to put down what these names mean.

The first one means total scene. The total scene of life and action on earth. Toby. If you know anybody named Toby it means goodness, and Jah, Jahweh is the short form for God so goodness of God. Jedaiah means the Jed here is the equivalent of Jah. This is all Hebrew. When they’re taking it out of Hebrew and putting it into English they start messing around with the letters to make it easier to pronounce. The iah back here is just the Jah up here and the Jed up here means know so it means God knows. Josiah actually means despair and Zephaniah means God conceals or hides.

So, this is kind of complicated but you guys are more than able to understand it. The voice of the Lord came to me saying take from the captivity even the total scene of life and the action up on the earth, the goodness of God, that God knows. Go to the house of Josiah, go to the house of despair where God conceals or hides. That’s what it says. Take from the people that are coming, and these names are listed to give us coded information that means the total scene of life, the action on earth of God’s goodness, that God knows what this is all about. He is not doing this in ignorance. Go to the house of Josiah, go to the house of despair and God hides or conceals this information.

The house of despair and the house that God conceals. God understands all this. He is not fooled. He is talking about the Messiah. He is talking about the Messiah and He says I know where this is going to happen. It’s a scene basically of the life and death struggle where all the action of everything actually culminates right there at what we call Golgotha. You will see the goodness of God and this is not taking God by surprise where this scene plays out. God knows it. You will go to the place of despair, this will go to the house of despair, but God will conceal it and that plays right into Romans chapter 16 where he says in 25-27, “Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery.” So this is where God has concealed it. “According to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began. But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets,” Zechariah, “according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith: To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen.”

He is playing right into what this says. Paul is saying God was not taken unaware. He had a mystery. He had a hidden thing going on and it concerns the Messiah, that where the Messiah was going to be there was going to be a struggle of life and death. There was going to be this struggle. This is where it’s all going to play out. Jesus is going to be in the place, the Messiah is going to be in the place that this life struggle plays out and it’s going to show forth the goodness of God, and it’s all known. God knows all this. He will go the house of despair. Jesus goes to the house of Despair. Then in verse 11, we’re still in Zechariah, take silver and gold. This is something we’ve been over a lot. Silver and gold. In symbolic language what does silver stand for? You’re all sitting there going oh, we know it, we know it. Redemption. Yeah. I saw you look at your notes. It works well. It doesn’t matter.

Redemption, and gold stands for divine. Divine. So, he says when these people come take silver and gold and make crowns. You’ll notice it’s plural, crowns. Make crowns and set them upon the head of Joshua the son of Josedech. I read a different translation and they put Zs in here and they put Ks and As. So, what he is saying is when the captives come back know this, that there is a place where the total scene of life is going to take place, the hinge, the pivotal point of history. The history of the earth is going to happen. You’ll see the goodness of God. God knows all about it, but you will go to the house of despair and this is the mystery that God has put before us. It’s going to be that you will take divine redemption and you’ll make it into crowns, plural, and you will put them on the head of Joshua. Do you now what the translation of Joshua is into the New Testament? Jesus.

Yeshua, Joshua, they’re all the same name as Jesus. They’ve taken the Hebrew here, Joshua, and they translated it into the Greek equivalent which we call Jesus. So, it says take this crown that you make, crowns, plural, divine redemption or redemption that is divine, you can go either way with it, out of silver and out of gold, crowns, plural, two, and put them on the head so there was a literal person. So they are play acting all this out. He says you go to find this guy named Joshua who is the son of Josedech and place them on his head. Place the crowns on the head of Jesus and Josedech means God, or the God that justifies. He says when these people are coming back take silver and gold, divine redemption, make crowns of them, silver crown, gold crown, and place them on the head of Joshua who is the son of the God that justifies. Playing out here.

Then as we go along in verse 12 of this here and he says speak unto him saying thus sayeth the Lord of hosts saying behold the man whose name is THE BRANCH. Most people focus on the part where it talks about it being the branch, but we want to focus right at this very moment at the place where it says behold the man. Behold the man. What did I read out of the Gospels when Pilate walked out? He said behold the man. He was fulfilling. You place the crown and remember it said that they platted a crown out of thorns so that’s more than one, there were these crowns made. Symbolically we understand that that is divine redemption being played out in front of us. They put the crown on Joshua’s head, on Jesus’ head, and He is the son of the God that justifies.

They put them on His head and then He says you say to him behold the man. Pilate brings him out. He’s wearing that crown of redemption. He claimed to be, and they’re accusing him of saying we have a law that says He should die because He claims to be the Son of God and right there in that scripture it says you put the crown on Jesus’ head, on Joshua’s head because he is the Son of the God that justifies. He walks out. There’s Jesus wearing this entwined crown. At least two branches are entwined and placed on His head. They put it on the head of Jesus who claims to be the Son of the God that justifies and Pilate out of the blue says behold the man. Fulfillment of the prophets. Not only does he fulfill the prophets when he said this as we read he says I find no fault.

Right there Christ is fulfilling one of the prophecies.” I have come not to do away with the law or the prophecy.” He fulfills the prophet. “Behold a man wearing the entwined crowns on His head. His name is Joshua. He claims to be the Son of the God that justifies” and He fulfilled the law also because that man said I find no fault in Him.

So, all this stuff is being played out. Now, the Latin of this and it’s just an odd thing the way it’s pronounced, you’ll hear it pronounced, you’ll see paintings named this, in Latin it’s ecce homo. Homo means man, ecce behold. Ecce. Behold a man. We have a literal fulfillment that that guy places those crowns on Joshua’s head, on Jesus’ head, the guy who claims to be the Son of God. Not one crown, but entwined upon His head two crowns entwined together which represents the divine redemption and that guy comes out and says, “ Behold the man.”

Those people should have totally freaked out right there at that point, but they kept going and saying He needs to be killed. Now, the part that most people pick up on is where it says, “Say to him thus sayeth the Lord, behold a man whose name is the branch.” I hope that most of us have been around church long enough that we have heard this prophecy being spoken of. Isaiah speaks of the branch, Jeremiah speaks of the branch, Zechariah here speaks of the branch. I don’t want to get into it because that’s a big long teaching in itself, but this word branch is netser. It’s where we get the word Nazarene, Nazareth. It means He is a nazarus. He is the one that comes to separate, He is the one that comes to sanctify. This is the branch, the root of David, and most people think the root of Jesse. The branch that will grow up to David. That’s a lot of prophecies right there in different locations.

I hope you remember the branch because we talked about it here in Sunday School I know, but it means netser. It’s where we get Nazarene. He shall be known as a Nazarene. It’s not a person who shaves his head, but he is a person who separates, who consecrates. A person who is the root of Jesse and most people take it to mean Jesse is his grandfather, but read what it says. This branch is the root of Jesse so Jesse is the stump, the root is Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus is the one that is behind all this. He is the root of Jesse and He will grow up to David. He is the branch that will grow up. He is the branch who is the root, the progenitor or the person who gets this all started with Jesse because he sends the prophet out there and says Jesse, do you have a son and he says yes, I’ve got David. So, he is the root, he is the cause that brought Jesse to the place. Jesse says yes, I have a son, and then the prophecy goes on and says that root of Jesse will spring up and be the branch of David.

So, he’s not only the background of David, he is also the one that is coming to grow up into David the beloved. He will become the true beloved of God, and that’s a whole teaching into itself and we can go into that for quite some time. Then verse 12, where I was reading, it says and speak unto him saying, “Behold the man whose name is The BRANCH; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord.” Okay, we understand it in the New Testament, but a fulfillment of where Paul in the New Testament teaches do you not know that you are the temple of God? Do you not know that you are living stones being built up to the temple of God? We see this as a fulfillment that the temple that Jesus is building, the temple that the guy who wore the crown of divine redemption who was told behold the man, we see that and say he is building a temple, and the temple is the church of Jesus Christ.

They take this right here, a lot of Jewish people will say we can’t build the temple over in Jerusalem yet. There is a prophesied third temple and they say there is a temple coming, but we can’t build it because Zechariah says that when he comes he will build the temple and so there are people over there who are literally protesting, Jews, not Arabs but Jews, who are saying you cannot build that temple on top of that mountain. Then you’ll notice it goes back to, “And the crowns shall be to Helem.” I don’t know why they do this kind of stuff, but Helem is the same play out here. It’s like in the New Testament it will say and the prophet Isaiah said, and then you’ll read a little later and it says the prophet Isaias said. It’s the same person. Jeremiah says or sometimes it will say Jeremias says. Same person. Helem is the scene. Then it goes on and it names the rest of them again, “and he shall build the temple of the LORD: Even he shall build the temple of the LORD; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them.”

Now, I want to cover that. What it is saying is, as far as I know, and I could be wrong, but the way I remember is that this is the first mention where the Messiah would come and would be the Priest and the King. Before Messiah had been talked about that He would be the King, the son of David, of the root of Jesse. He would be the King. We’ve got other places where it said there is this person coming who will be a Priest after the order of Melchizedek. Here we have where God reveals, he puts it together that this person, this Messiah is going to be Priest and King and there will be peace between both of them because He is both of them. You won’t have the King at odds with the Priest because He is both of them, and it says, “And the crowns shall be to Helem, and to Tobijah, and to Jedaiah,” and notice they add in another one here called Hen, “Hen, the son of Zephaniah, for a memorial to the temple of the Lord.”

So, what they’re supposed to do is after they make this crown of silver and crown of gold that evidently was entwined, they place it on the head of this guy named Jesus who is the Son of the God who justifies, and that was the God’s name, the God who justifies. You put it on, you play this all out and then you take this crown off His head. When the second temple is built you take it in and you place it inside that temple and it is to be a memorial. We think of a memorial as something that hasn’t happened. This is a prophetic memorial saying you remember this because I told you that this crown represents the place where the scene of life and the action of earth is played out, showing forth the goodness of God, that God knows about it, that this place was a place of despair where God has concealed it, but He will reveal the mystery.

He says this is to be put forth as a memorial to the great thing that God has accomplished and he says to Hen, and Hen in Hebrew is grace, favor, and they say it is the contracted form of a name that means freely given. Grace and favor freely given. He says this is what happens with total despair and God hides it, but when it is brought forth. You remember all this because then it’s a memorial to the grace and favor of God which will be freely given and it will be put out. Now, I’ve lost one thing and it’s Zephaniah, Hen’s father’s name. It’s something God. It’s out of my head. “And they that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the LORD, and ye shall know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto you. And this shall come to pass, if ye will diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God.”

So there it is. We have what we’ve always just read as a historical fact that Jesus had a crown of thorns put on His head and that He was led out and Pilate says behold the man, I find no fault in him, and the Jews say well, we have a law. He claims to be God. That whole little scene that was there was depicted because of what Zechariah has talked about. He is saying when you see this all happen and Jesus is wearing the crown it represents the divine redemption of God and He is the Son of the God who justifies. Know it, because once it is done grace and favor will flow free and people from all over the world will come and build the temple, and we know in the New Testament the temple that it is referring to is not brick and stone. It is actually the temple of Jesus Christ, the church of Jesus Christ.

Why does it have to be so detailed and so minutiae? This is God’s way of putting it there. It’s not to bore us, it’s to show us that God knows all the details. It’s not something vague like you go to a palm reader or a crystal ball gazer who reads your horoscope. They’re always vague. I knew a woman who was really ornery. She worked in the newspaper and she was the one who posted the horoscopes. Well, whenever things weren’t working right she would just take any old horoscopes, clip them out and put them under all these different horoscope categories and she just mixed them up. The dates were right but she would take the horoscope of Gemini and put it over under Torus and the scope of this one and put it under that one. She would also go back and find some that had ran like two or three years before and just rerun them, as though they were current ones. She thought it was funny and said, “You know those people, and those things are so vague that they’ll come in and say, ‘Oh, that horoscope fit me exactly.’ and I’m sitting there thinking, well, I thought you were a Gemini and I just put a Sagittarius under Gemini there and you think it’s great.”

God’s prophecies are not vague and general that can apply to just about anything. God puts His details in there so if somebody really pays attention you can say it’s way too detailed to just be a mistake, a fluke, or a coincidence. These details are all shoved into that prophecy so when it plays out and we in Glenwood read what Pilate did, we can jump back and say look, our God knows. He knew all this and right there is where it all played out and it talks about it hundreds of years before, and here is where Christ is fulfilling the law by no fault and the prophets. Behold the man. The third thing that plays out there about the branch which includes Zechariah, Isaiah and Jeremiah all plays out, so it’s all right there. It’s all there.

Did anybody find the name for Zephaniah?

In my Bible it says the Lord has concealed; the Lord has protected; treasured by God.

My Bible says Yahweh sheltered or stored up or Zaphon (God) is Yahweh.

There you go. Now, anybody have any questions? I know that was a lot, but like I said you guys are capable. Don’t worry about it. There is not going to be a pop quiz next… oh, there might be. There might be a pop quiz next week. No, I just want to expose this and the more of this stuff that we have in our life the more we go wow, and the more it keeps playing out as we go through. If I ever get around to talking about the branch, because actually within that branch, that netser word, is prophesy about Christians witnessing to Jews, but it takes a while to get through it, but it’s in there.

If nobody has questions or statements we will close.